top of page

Status Quo: Keeping Things The Same
August 2022

One of the issue categories with the largest number of residents I talked to during my most recent eight-month visit to 12,000 homes in our Legislative District was the desire to keep things the same or as I named the category keeping things "status quo."  Many of them, perhaps rightly, thought:

​

  • the state had kept the state budget balanced unlike many other states

  • the state had one of the best sound economies in the Country

  • life for them was comfortable

​​

So why change?  Change is not easy for many people, especially, if it is deemed unnecessary.  As human beings, we are used to a sort of homeostasis or maintaining the same balance.  If elected as your state representative for our community, it is important to respect and understand this perspective.  In the background of this webpage, there is a Colonial flag with 13 stars representing the original 13 states of our Country.  There have been a number of other flags, especially message flags that are not so respectful flying in our community.  Yet the basis of such message flags is based on a different set of perspectives and world-views as to what is happening in our world today, a lot of it coming from a diverging income class separation between rich and poor that began decades ago and has begun to wipe out America's middle-class.

​

LET THE HEALING BEGIN

​

It is essential that every view is listened to in our community.  John Stuart Mills, a 19th Century British philosopher and political scientist, said it best in On Liberty where he insisted that a sound democratic government must be open to all opinions and that even if every person believed in just one viewpoint that it was essential that a devils' advocate be created to test the viewpoint for the truth.  Unless our own beliefs are constantly and rigorously tested, they may only be ideas that have no real basis to stand on anymore or have outlived their time as time has passed onwards into the future.

​

The new Democratic Party needs to begin to understand that the real problem with politics is not the blanket labeling of far-right conservatives or as some social-progressives might label them as "Trumpers" but that the white working class has also been abused and dis-repected by the rich elites too!  We are fighting against ourselves.  Instead, Americans need to focus on the devastating impact of income inequality and the great disparity between the rich and poor as the middle-class has been decimated over the past thirty years.  Joan C. Williams, "Treating Non-Elites With Respect," The New Republic (May 2022).  Democrats are fighting the wrong people.  Yes, as I have been to all 12,000-plus homes in our Legislative District, I have encountered a few not so nice conservatives, but they are in the minority of their own conservative Party.  Many of these so-called far-right conservatives are decent, caring people who look out for their neighbors, regardless of ethnicity.​

​

With this important view in mind, I commit to seeking change, not for change sake, but only when I can offer up persuasive factual and moral justifications for my decisions.  Our community deserves a Representative who will ensure their vote is based on:

 

  1. reason supported by observed facts and science,

  2. serves the public interest that is ethically based,

  3. while protecting fundamental individual rights, and

  4. reflects a broad-based consensus of our community whenever possible.

​

​

bottom of page